Cement is a powder, which by hydraulic reaction (i.e. with water) forms a solid, cohesive mass. cement is kind of binder, a substance which sets and hardens independently, and can bind other materials together. Cement plays a fundamental role in daily life, it tends to be one of those products we all take for granted, yet without it, our world would quite literally fall apart.
Cement is manufactured by combining a homogenous blend of carefully proportioned raw materials (limestone or chalk and clay/ shale/ sand) at a very high temperature (14500C) in a rotary kiln. The raw materials fuse together to form 'clinker', a hard granular material. The clinker is ground to a powder along with gypsum to make cement.
Joseph Aspdin, an English mason who patented the product in 1824, named it portland cement because it produced a concrete that resembled the color of the natural limestone quarried on the Isle of Portland, a peninsula in the English Channel. Today cement is an essential material in modern construction.
As a constituent of concrete, cement puts much of the strength into our homes, schools, hospitals and much more. We also need it to make the mortar that bonds our bricks and blocks as well as in the manufacture of many concrete products ranging from blocks to pipes. Today, concrete is the second most consumed substance in the world after water.